Courtroom cameras headed for biggest statewide test in DuPage

Video, still photographers are set to see Wednesday arraignment of Naperville woman accused of killing 2 children

November 18, 2012|By Clifford Ward, Special to the Tribune

Elzbieta Plackowska is accused of stabbing to death her young son and a girl she had been baby-sitting in Naperville. (DuPage County Sheriff's office photo)

The experiment with courtroom cameras in Illinois has earned good reviews in smaller venues but faces its biggest challenge as DuPage County prepares for the first court proceeding in the Chicago area with TV cameras and photographers.

The arraignment Wednesday of Elzbieta Plackowska, the Naperville resident accused of killing her son and a girl she was baby-sitting could feature the presence of TV cameras and photographers.

DuPage County Judge Robert Kleeman, who is overseeing the case, will meet with attorneys Tuesday to review the planned media coverage of the Plackowska hearing.

The Illinois Supreme Court announced its pilot program in January to admit electronic recording at court proceedings, which is already allowed in more than 30 states. Twenty-three Illinois counties have been approved for cameras.

DuPage joined the program in September and adopted local rules last month. The first request came after Plackowska was charged with fatally stabbing her son, Justin, 7, on Oct. 30 along with Olivia Dworakowski, 5.

"When we were adopting the rules, we didn't expect the first request to come so quickly," John Lipinski, the DuPage courts administrator, said last week at a meeting between court officials and about two dozen media representatives.

Chief Judge John Elsner and Judge John Kinsella, who chaired the DuPage camera committee, recently joined other officials in explaining the procedure for requesting electronic coverage. Media members were escorted to the courtroom where the Plackowska arraignment will take place.

Under DuPage rules, two TV cameras and two still photographers are allowed inside the courtroom.

For the Plackowska hearing, one photographer and one video camera operator will be stationed next to the jury box, while the other two will be positioned next to the witness stand. The two vantages should allow photographers to capture images of Plackowska as she enters the courtroom from an adjacent holding area, and as she stands at the bench.

The hearing itself may not produce much drama.

At a typical arraignment, the judge formally reads the charges against a defendant and explains the possible penalties. The defendant then enters a plea, which almost invariably is "not guilty." Sometimes the prosecutors forward investigative reports or other discovery material to the defense, and procedural issues are addressed. It often takes just a few minutes.

But those images of Plackowska — shackled and in a jail jumpsuit — captured on video, and then possibly replayed many times on TV as the case winds on, could have consequences, said Kane County Public Defender Kelli Childress.

"Those kinds of pretrial images can really prejudice the jury pool," Childress, who is on the Kane committee formulating camera rules, wrote in an email.

"Assuming DuPage doesn't dress her in plainclothes due to the media request, the Plackowska arraignment will be an interesting test for that, if she in fact goes to trial down the road," she wrote.

DuPage's first recorded proceeding marks another evolution in the growth of the pilot program, which is expected to expand into Cook County, Joseph Tybor, the spokesman for the Supreme Court, said this week.

The first recorded murder trial, a Kankakee street shooting, took place this fall, and the Nicholas Sheley trial that opened in Morrison, Ill., last month was considered the first high-profile media coverage trial. Sheley was found guilty Nov. 6 of beating an elderly man to death, one of eight people he is suspected of murdering in a two-state killing spree.

As the camera program has grown, state courts have found ways to honor the goal of greater transparency and still ensure that the judicial process is not affected, Tybor said. In the Kankakee trial, he said, one witness objected to being photographed but was comfortable having the audio portion of her testimony recorded.

Childress attended the Sheley trial for a day and said the cameras did not appear to hinder the witnesses or attorneys.

"No one played to the cameras, no one seemed nervous or distracted," she wrote.

DuPage State's Attorney Robert Berlin told reporters after a hearing this week that the cameras won't affect his courtroom focus at Plackowska's hearing.